AT&T has reached a milestone by delivering 20 Gbps symmetric speeds on a live production fiber network, an industry first.
The company’s Hyper-Gig service is already among the fastest in the United States, offering 5 Gbps symmetric connections to both consumers and businesses.
AT&T has continued pushing capacity to prepare its network for emerging applications and higher future demands. Earlier this year the company reported 10 Gbps results in laboratory testing.
While lab tests are informative, they don’t always reflect real-world conditions. Achieving high speeds on a production network provides a more accurate picture of what customers can expect.
AT&T says it has now achieved 20 Gbps symmetric throughput on a production fiber deployment — meaning the same peak speed is available for uploads and downloads.
Eddy Barker, AVP Mobility & Access Architecture at AT&T, wrote in a company blog post:
“Why are symmetric speeds so important? Consumers and businesses are increasingly both content consumers and creators. We are uploading and sending videos and other massive files.
For example, if you’re an online gamer, you are exchanging tons of data with other players in real-time, perhaps teaming up with your friends in VR or livestreaming your exploits to millions of fans.
For businesses, sharing video and VR streams across the network enables near-real-time data analytics, metaverse communities, increased worker safety, robotic manufacturing, and more.”
To put this progress in context, AT&T’s fiber deployments began around 2010, when customers typically shared 2.5 Gbps downstream and 1.25 Gbps upstream. Those early services used GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) technology.
In 2020, AT&T began testing and rolling out XGS-PON technology, which increased fiber capacity roughly fourfold for downstream traffic and eightfold for upstream traffic compared with GPON.
XGS-PON is the platform behind AT&T’s current Hyper-Gig offering. The company is now evaluating the next generation: 25GS-PON.
25GS-PON operates over the same fiber cabling AT&T has installed for years but boosts capacity by about 2.5 times relative to XGS-PON, enabling higher speeds and greater bandwidth per user.
“In our trial, we were able to take advantage of wavelength coexistence with our FiberWise™ technology — combining 25GS-PON with XGS-PON and other point-to-point services over the same fiber to offer an efficient evolutionary path,” Barker explained.
AT&T participates in the 25GSPON MSA group, a consortium of more than 50 global operators shaping the standards and specifications for the new technology. AT&T expects 25GS-PON to reach maturity within the next six to twelve months.
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